Farewell to the Senate

Floor Speech

FAREWELL TO THE SENATE -- (Senate - January 16, 2009)

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, may I, first, thank you for your courtesy in volunteering to take over the duties of Presiding Officer for a moment so I could be relieved of those duties and come to my desk and have the chance to say something about a very dear friend whom we will miss enormously. I know we have something very important happening in a few minutes, so I will speak very briefly, but I don't want to let this opportunity pass.

We had an energetic group of freshmen Senators come in 2 years ago, and we found Ken was feeling kind of lonely because his class had been sort of a bit smaller than ours. So we sort of adopted him into our group. He has been kind of a big brother to all of us. I have had the privilege of knowing him as an attorney general, and I will not belabor the point, but what people have said about him as a peacemaker, about him as a friend, and about him as somebody who cares deeply about the duty of public service, I can attest to firsthand from many years of experience.

So I will only say we will miss you very deeply. We are enormously confident in you. The Department of the Interior is lucky to have you, President-elect Obama is fortunate to have you join his Cabinet, and we wish you Godspeed, my friend.

I yield the floor.

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